So, a few months back I mentioned on Epicurus that I had spent entirely too much money to acquire a musical instrument that I cannot play and that in all likelihood I will never learn to play. This tale is about spending some more stupid money, but at least this time it was on something that I am certainly well equipped to appreciate.
This is a DC Comics house ad by the great Ira Schnapp announcing the launch of the Justice League of America in their very own comic. After three successful outings in The Brave and The Bold (numbers 28-30) in early 1960, the seminal silver age super-group got its eponymous magazine later that year.
The B&B adventures of the JLA and the earliest issues of their own comic predate the start of my reading days; I was a 12-cent silver ager and missed the "all in color for dime" era by just few years. In fact, I read most of these early stories for the first time as reprints collected in "80 pg. Giant" specials.
Nonetheless, the Justice League itself, and this ad as well, loom large in my memory of those early, heady days of discovering comics. The sensibility of the great Schnapp lettering on display here, which abounded in DC house ads and logos for many years, forms the background fabric for my visual recreation of that era. Schnapp also designed the title of the Justice League of America comic itself, something I liked so much I had it reproduced for my arm tattoos.
The cool action-figure chess game in the ad caught my fancy and the Just Imagine! headline resonated with me and has stayed with me over the years - so much so that I have even used this ad as the conceit for a speech to honors students when I was a dean. (I must not have been the only one to love it - DC used the phrase as the name of a line of early 2000s comics in which Stan Lee re-envisioned DC heroes.)
In any case, this ad, and the Justice League, have always meant a lot to me. And a couple months ago, having a little extra folding green, I did something for the first time ever: I bought a comic as a collectible artifact and not as reading material.
Through the good offices of Heritage Online Auctions, I successfully obtained a copy of Justice League of America #1. It's in pretty poor shape - you can see the corner wear, water spot, and creases even in the picture above - but frankly, that's the shape most of my comics were in most of the time. (As a friend of mine observed after having some comics slabbed, the highest-graded comics are those that were loved the least.) Because it was in such sorry condition, I got for just relatively stupid money - chump change, really - and not the $10,000 or more that a near-mint copy would go for. (That would be totally nuts.) But I am really happy for it, and it holds pride of place in the living room.
I don't think this purchase will send me down the road of acquisition - I like my life a lighter than that - but having this one item gives me a great deal of pleasure.
